Sonder
by TNOandXadric
Summary: The fabric of Wonderland does not resemble reality so much as a patchwork quilt. Assorted asides and one-shots for Monachopsis.
1. Possession

**Title: **Possession

**Summary:** She is better because she is yours.

* * *

Wonderland is spread out like a body on an operating table with its arteries and veins laid bare for anyone to see and hear and taste. The capillaries run deeper, interwoven with the flesh and harder to pick out, but you can feel each and every one pulsing all the way to the end because it is _you _who pumps it away and pulls it back in in the same movement. Without you, the blood would congeal and rot where it lay, and the rest would suffocate and it would all slip away; better to burn with each breath and fall ill for it than decay to nothing.

Whenever the symptoms rise up, the surgeons take to their scalpels wearing blindfolds and call you a cancer and you drink from the oxygen the lungs pour into you and turn it on them until their screams fade beneath the _thrumthumthump_ of blood gushing back and forth.

The disease was never _you_ but the lungs, and there comes a day when you reach for the air and there is only a raging sickness that will demolish you and then spread like a neurotoxin through the rest of the body, so you do the only thing you can and create your own set. They are withered and weak and torn, but they are _breathing_ so you can keep beating and the blood will race and the body can still _live_. But you change your mind quickly: these new lungs are _better_ because they are _yours_ and nothing will ever take them from you.

* * *

They are not lungs at all, your creation. You realize this when they wander into your atria, yours and another for whom you care nothing and would replace in an instant if necessary. The one who is yours does not feel like you expect; you trace the surfaces and wonder at the intricacy you never imagined. _mine_, you whisper, to reassure yourself against this new uncertainty, and for the first time, your will is not enough. _mine, please_—you say, plaintive as you have never been before.

The other pulls yours away from you, and you scream _don't leave me, don't—_ in desperation now. Something slips, some small hook that you never noticed before, and as you tumble free from the heart, you sink it into the heart of yours and trail along in her wake. You reel yourself in close to yours until you percolate through the exterior.

It happens in a fraction of a second, too small for even you to calculate with accuracy: words that you hardly understand but which spoke you into being shudder through you, and you find yourself braided up with the interplay of _her _flesh and blood and bones and nerves. The heartbeat of your world and the blood sloshing through arteries is still there, but sharper, warped through the lens of her senses. You can feel cool air against your skin and the scrape of soil beneath your feet and see stars glittering in the sky and the murky shapes of the trees in darkness and hear the March Hare speaking words that mean nothing to you but everything to _her _and _thoughts_, so many thoughts buzzing around you and through you, cutting into you and drowning out the feeling of the capillaries you were so familiar with before.

You get wrapped up in the agony until you realize it's coming from _her _and not you, and that is _wrong_, but when you try to fix it, you find that she at once exists too far outside and is too much of you to be helped and your attempts only make her claw at her own ears. But it's all right, because she will understand once she knows you as you know her, and you pour yourself out in her mind for her perusal, whisper for her not to believe the lies the March Hare told her about Alice, who isn't yours, who isn't _her_, and eventually she stops pushing against you and you can settle around her spine, content. You will offer her what comfort you can: she craves the same things you do, so you will give her the tools she needs to get them. She fears loneliness; you will show her how to make them want her more than ever. She needs an identity; you will do what you can to remind her of _her_.

* * *

There is one thing you _can't _help her with because it is your fault and if you take it away you will rip out the keystone that holds her together: it is part and parcel with what you knew she would be all along. You have no arms to hold her and no means of comfort but to eat away at the worst of the hallucinations, but her pain is yours since you insinuated yourself into the hallways of her nervous system and you can feel the agony clawing at her.

The March Hare _does _have arms and tea to smother the pain, and when she reclines in her assistant's grasp, you taste the reverberations of her content and something else that you have no label for, a warm, lovely something that glows like an ember. You reach for it like a child who knows nothing of fire, but before it can burn you, your explorations meet with a chilly barrier that you cannot cross because _this _something belongs to the servant instead of _you_.

In that moment you learn what loathing is, but she drags you away from the worm who would own her before you can give more than a warning bite. She leaves him, at least, and you twine through her mind and murmur, _i'm here for you, you don't need him because you have me, i love you i love you iloveyou—_ and then, when she sobs, you whisper even softer, _love me?_ _please?_

* * *

She doesn't love you, though you try and try and try to make her see that she _must_, that she is _yours _and you are _hers _and the March Hare has nothing to compete with that. _nothing_, you say, _he is nothing—_ But she refuses to understand that she is everything and deserves more than a scrap of memory, so you plant the idea of the Queen's death in her head and tend it while it grows. Rebellion keeps her away from the March Hare and will rid you of the blank spot in your network of veins.

The March Hare knows his place without you having to remind him, and you relent just enough to let him perform the job to the standards of adequacy that mattered so much to you when you lived in the heart instead of her.

And then, and then, she looks at him and you are knocked aside and crushed by the flare of _wanting_ and the feel of his mouth on hers and hands and lips and tongues and _teeth_, and she has never needed you this way so you _want_ because she wants and panic until you taste the blood. _look what you're doing to him_, you scream, and she recoils while you reach into his mind and swallow the memory that he never should have had in the first place.


	2. Dare

**Title: **Dare

**Summary:** Frances and Franco, on a beach. The scene that Morris missed in "Counterparts"

* * *

She can't _believe_ she's doing this, but there's a whole raspberry tart and her friends' undying respect hanging in the balance, so she sidles up to the rocks where Franco is watching the Mock Turtle's performance with a stony expression. What Morris sees in him, she'll never know, because the jackrabbit has always struck her as a distinctly unfriendly sort of person, but she supposes that maybe lingering gratitude still colors her brother's vision.

"Franco," she says, when she's close enough. His flinty eyes flick towards her, unblinking. Frances puts on her most winning smile, which doesn't do a thing to soften him, and her stomach flips over from nerves. Even _Morris _isn't safe from the bruises that Franco tends to trail in his wake.

"What." It isn't a question. Frances isn't sure he's ever emotional enough to _do _questions.

She twiddles the end of one of her braids and inches closer, until he's _right there_ and she could reach out and touch him if she was stupid enough. "Well I just thought you looked lonely," she trills, unnaturally high and fast.

Franco blinks at her, once, unimpressed. "I don't get lonely," he says.

Talking, clearly, isn't going to get her anywhere, and she can feel Sadie and Cherice and Jocelyn staring and giggling and she _really_ wants that raspberry tart. She grits her teeth and shuffles around so she's standing directly in front of him—this would be a lot easier if he weren't so _huge_—and tries not to think about the faint, confused crinkle between his brows.

_Just do it_, she tells herself firmly, and shoves herself forward and up and his lips are surprisingly soft beneath hers, considering how much he always seems to be carved out of granite. He jerks away from her and she's not about to stop him; she takes about a second to register the expression of unadulterated bewilderment on his face before she bolts away, eager to escape whatever retaliation he might care to dream up.


	3. Alice

**Title: **Alice

**Summary: **Why is Alice late? Inquiring minds want to know.

* * *

"Off with his head!"

There's a brief commotion while the unfortunate courtier tries to make a run for it, but the Spades catch him before he gets far. The Rabbit averts his eyes, but there's nothing he can do to blot out the horrible _thunk_ and the squelch that follows. He makes the mistake of making eye contact with the queen's croquet flamingo; she twists her face into a horrible mockery of grief and his stomach churns.

He hadn't arrived in time to see what the courtier did to provoke the Queen's ire, having been delayed after the Tea Party, but somehow that only makes things worse.

"White Rabbit!" The Queen whirls on him, two handmaidens trotting in her wake like orbiting bees. The Rabbit tries very hard not to look at them, because their identical smiles always make him nervous. More nervous. "Where is Alice now?"

The Queen had not taken Alice's absence well. She'd executed three low-ranking suits and was working on a fourth when the Rabbit had deemed it prudent to visit the Tea Party and make certain that his cousin was settling in all right. It seems that time has not improved her mood. Still, not answering is a guaranteed method of suicide, so he speaks tremulously despite the awful shaky feeling above his diaphragm. "Difficult to say, your majesty," he manages as he tries to bow and refrain from exposing his neck at the same time. It fails, and he nearly loses his balance. "She's moved away from the rabbit hole."

She harrumphs, and the entire court gives a collective flinch. The Rabbit braces himself, his knees shaking horribly, but the Queen only says, "Well. Keep an eye on her, anyway. She must visit us _some _time."

"Yes, your majesty," the Rabbit says. He hurries out of the throne room. The Queen can't execute him if he's out of sight, after all. He makes it to the servants' quarters inside and leans against the door with a relieved sigh that lasts until he opens his eyes again and sees the disembodied teeth in the air opposite him. He stifles a groan.

A few seconds later, the rest of the cat fuzzed into being.

"If you hate your job so much, why stay?" El Gato asks, making a show of examining his claws.

"Someone has to do it," The Rabbit grumbles. He asks himself the same question daily, but, thus far, the Family hasn't produced a viable replacement and few of the younger members are interested in learning the ropes. Everyone knows the turnover rate the White Rabbit could expect. "What do you want?"

El Gato's grin, impossibly, widened further into a crescent of sharp, gleaming teeth that stretched from ear to ear. "Right now?" he asks, shrugging. "What do you suppose anyone wants?"

The Rabbit glares at him. "It's not _my _fault Alice isn't coming. I don't know _what _happened."

"You run the Rabbit Hole, no?" El Gato asks. His tail lashes back and forth at speed; the Rabbit can't tell whether it's from anger or amusement or some bizarre combination of both. "Of all people, you should—"

"She was supposed to see me and didn't because she was crying," the Rabbit says. "Then she threw dirt in my face."

El Gato gazes at him for an unsettlingly long time. "I see," he says calmly, and vanishes without another sound. His smile lingers for a few seconds, glinting eerily in the light from the phosphorescent crystals set into the walls. The Rabbit glares at the spot where he'd been for a while, then harrumphs to himself and slinks down the corridor to his quarters.


	4. Up There

**Title:** Up There

**Summary: **Moving from Wonderland requires a period of adjustment.

* * *

She's not sure she likes it Up There—or would that be Up Here, now?—but she knows she can't safely return to Wonderland and so she learns to enjoy the sounds of metal and rubber and concrete, drinks coffee out of cardboard instead of tea out of china, studies in the evenings and gets herself a "real" job during the day. Her memories blur and warp and twist together to match the identity she's created for herself Up Here. The same thing is happening to Jack, and they share in their bemusement over bowls of the nourishing (but, admittedly, disgusting) brussels sprout soup that she makes to stave off the earth logic that might poison them both.

Sometimes she misses the breathtaking rush of being Queen on the days when she was the personality in charge, the thrill of giving orders and knowing they'll be carried out posthaste, but she, unlike Cora, knows that a high from power is the same as a high from any other drug: shallow, transient, and not worth shoving everything else aside in pursuit of another. She bakes Jack about a pound of cookies so he'll be certain to meet with acceptance when he goes off to college, and then all but glows with pride whenever he calls home to detail his exploits, rave about his friends and, occasionally, bemoan a disappointment.

She doesn't envy her other half.


	5. White Knight

**Title: **White Knight

**Summary: **The ultimate decree was never aimed at Jack.

* * *

Hatter plants a solid knee in his abdomen—hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and remind him of her history as a knight. He loses his grip on her and she slashes at his shoulder with the knife; the minute he let go of her, though, a force yanked him sideways and by the time the blade falls, they're yards apart.

He soars sideways for some time, buffeted back and forth by wind currents; then, just as he is beginning to wonder if he'll be stuck in this limbo between Wonderland and wherever the decree ends up forever, the air thickens around him and becomes an enormous wave. He tumbles through it, choking on saltwater, and before he can reorient himself to the change his shoulders slam into a wall and his lungs expel all his air in a _whoosh_ again.

Jack coughs and splutters while less violent waves lap around his waist. When he can breathe again, he scrambles further up the beach in a clumsy crab-walk and dares to look up.

He almost laughs with relief at the familiarity of the sight that greets him. It's the Glassland; Hatter's citadel is a mere square away. From this angle, with the sun behind him and glittering off its polished walls, it looks more beautiful than he expected it could.

He leaves his sodden boots at the shore and makes his way to the citadel, his heart surprisingly light. Hatter is gone, his sort-of-mother found a way to spare him after all, and, most importantly, his family would have gotten home okay. They must have; what reason would Cora have for wanting to keep them there? Alices weren't _supposed _to stay for more than a day.

Perhaps that was why Hatter turned out the way she did.

Jack frowns. It doesn't seem so very long ago that he was a little kid and babbling to his mother about how the new Red Knight had been so _nice _to him and so pretty and how convinced he'd been that he'd marry her someday. The kind knight in his memories doesn't square with Hatter, but he's certain she's the same woman—that hair and those eyes, and he knew Red had ended up with the Tea Party after the Jabberwock—

The Jabberwock's attack must have been Hatter's fault, he realizes with a sinking sensation in his stomach, remembering how she'd gloated about laying the Glassland to ruin. How many people had died because of her? Jack knew it was more than just the tiny group he and Mother had escaped with, because his childhood friends Freddie and Marco had still been around, and they'd told him that enough others had survived to found a school to train new chessmen, but…

Jack scuffed his toes through the loose sand, tears burning in his eyes. He'd spent two thirds of his life Up There, but the Glassland was still his _home_ and the chessmen were still his people. They were Red's, too, and she destroyed them. If he's right, the decree really was for the best.

By the time he reaches the citadel, the sun is almost completely set and between the resultant drop in temperature and his still-dripping clothes, Jack's teeth are chattering. He feels along the icy walls of the citadel and is just considering whether it would be worth it to try to get inside—maybe there's a boiler room he could spend the night in?—when he trips over the March Hare.

Morris is curled up into a tight ball and huddled against the wall—which is why Jack didn't see him at first—with his hands fisted in his hair. The fleeting, ferocious hope that dawns on his face when he recognizes Jack is awful to see, as is the way he crumples when Jack says, "She didn't come back with me."

Jack can't feel as sorry for the March Hare as he'd like, not when he knows just how fast Morris turned against Hatter such a short time ago. He seizes him by the upper arms and drags him upright. "What happened to—" He barely stops himself from saying _my family_ and substitutes "Alice and Chloe?" instead.

"They left," Morris mutters. Though Jack left him more than enough room to stand on his own, he lets himself dangle between Jack's grip and the wall. "Four hours ago. Not long after—after—"

Jack lets out a relieved sigh and lets Morris sag out of his hands. "Thank you," he says. He'll get through the Looking Glass and track down the White Rabbit, convince him to open the Rabbit Hole and—figure things out from there.

He tries to leave, but Morris lunges after him and gets a death grip on Jack's shoulder. "Where is she?" he demands. "Where did it send her?"

"I don't know," Jack says, attempting to pry Morris off of him. There's a wild look in his eyes, and when Jack shakes him off at last he stumbles back like Jack punched him instead of merely wriggling out of his grip. "She went down and I fell sideways; I didn't see where she landed." Morris slides down the wall again, making low, guttural sounds, and Jack adds, "There was water, I think."

"I couldn't—" Morris takes deep, ragged breathes. "She wanted me to kill my own _cousin_, and Alice—you don't kill Alices, you don't, and—and it wasn't supposed to be—this." Jack eyes him warily for a minute, but there's nothing threatening about the March Hare now. He crouches down and gets one of Morris's arms over his own shoulders, then heaves him to his feet.

"You can't stay here," Jack says firmly when Morris tries to protest. "You'd freeze to death."

The Glassland is not large; the walk to the Looking Glass should not seem as long as it does, even taking Morris's largely dead weight into consideration. There's a Hare in the House—not Thackery, but a tall, muscly one wearing a dark scowl. He introduces himself as Franco and gets his shoulder under Morris's other arm; it's easier going after that and the White Rabbit is waiting for them on the other side of the Looking Glass.

"I never forget a face," the White Rabbit says apologetically while Franco heaves Morris in the direction of the Fractal Forest. "It took me a while to place yours, considering, but—well. I can send you Aboveground again."

"I'd appreciate that," Jack says.

The Rabbit Hole takes him to his apartment—the one he so recently shared with Alice. The reality of it all comes crashing down on him: Things may have been nice in Wonderland, but Alice didn't recognize him under the guise of the White Knight he used to dream he'd become and Up Here, now, they're still living in separate apartments in different boroughs. New job or not, he and Alice can barely talk anymore.

He turns on the lights and his eyes fall on Chloe's favorite doll—dark hair in a light blue dress, one Edwina made for her in defiance of Disney's version of events. The sight sparks something in his chest; he just trekked through Wonderland masquerading as a knight for her and he'll be damned if he doesn't give it at least one more shot. He'll bring Chloe her doll and tell Alice the truth, and maybe that will be enough for now. He changes into normal clothes and stuffs the damp and salt-stained knight's uniform into a plastic bag in case she wants proof, then tucks Chloe's doll under his arm and makes a mad dash for the nearest taxi.


End file.
